


Happy (Accidental) Unions

by icarus_chained



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Stag Night, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 20:05:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before Pepper and Tony's wedding, he stops by to have a word with her. Tomorrow, after all, he'll be marrying his best friend.</p>
<p>Background Thor/Jane and Bruce/Betty, I think. And a drunken Natasha, which wasn't at all Tony's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy (Accidental) Unions

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fic, again. *grins sheepishly* This is a good week for prompts, apparently.

Pepper slumped over her desk. Her hair loose and disarranged, her blouse open at the top, her shoes toed off under the desk. She shoved the keyboard carefully out of the way, dropped the phone off the hook (onto the floor, but she wasn’t going to care about that), turned her cell off with shaky hands, and just … slumped. Dropped her head into her hands, and was still.

Everything was arranged. _Everything_ , down to the last bunch of flowers, and the last yard of ribbons, and the last damn notice to the various press that the wedding was _private_ , with security being provided by a decent portion of the military and intelligence communities, so when Tony said, on national television, that there was a decent chance of nosy reporters being shot (non-fatally), he wasn’t actually kidding. Between herself, and Maria Hill (security), and JARVIS (financial arrangements and general secretary/organiser/ringmaster), and Tony (mostly on telling-people-in-no-uncertain-terms-to-piss-off duty), the wedding was, finally, arranged.

Now all she had to do was go to sleep long enough to actually be able to _show up_ for it.

And at that moment, because the gods hated her, or just because Tony Stark had the worst sense of timing in the _universe_ , there was a knock on her door.

“Pep?” And for some reason, he was subdued, he was hesitant, _Tony Stark_ was standing in her doorway, all but shuffling his feet. “You got a minute?”

She raised her head, long enough to glare squint-eyed at him for a second, and then dropped it back. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your stag-night?” she asked, muffled through her fingers, as he swaggered carefully into the room. “You’re not supposed to see the bride the night before the wedding, you know.”

“I was,” he said, casually, setting something on her desk with a soft series of chinks. “Me, Rhodey, the Avengers. Half of SHIELD. Natasha’s a mean drunk, by the way.”

She hiccuped helplessly, a strangled laugh. “I told you not to let her have Bruce’s moonshine.”

“Yup,” he agreed, cheerfully, warm hands cupping hers, gently pulling them down from her face. “You absolutely did. I should always listen when you tell me things.” He looked down at her, hip propped on her desk, with that odd, soft look on his face. She blinked back at him.

“Why are you here, Tony?” she asked, softly. With a tiny, exhausted smile. “You’re really not supposed to see me until tomorrow. Tradition. Rules. Remember?”

Tony grinned quietly. “Vaguely,” he said, still holding her hands. “Didn’t I swear off that stuff, oh, about thirty odd years ago? I’m sure you took a note to that effect at some point.” 

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. And his smile, in response, grew impossibly wider, and infinitely softer.

“I wanted to see you,” he said, quietly. “I wanted to be with you.” He waved a quick hand at her suspicious squint. “No funny stuff. Just …” He shook his head, weirdly hesitant again. “Stag night is where you spend time with your friends, right? And … well. Tomorrow, I’m marrying my best friend. So I thought … maybe I should spend tonight just with her. Just … as friends. I mean, I’ve spent more than twenty years having a more or less continuous stag night. Tonight, shouldn’t I do something actually special?”

And he shrugged at her, uneasy and nervous, trying to grin it off, trying to pretend it didn’t mean as much to him as it did, trying to pretend she wasn’t staring at him in frank amazement. He shifted, his hands warm and tight and, now that she looked at them, freshly grease-stained around hers, and she just …

“Come here,” she said, pulling him to her, guiding him down as she shoved her chair back and folded herself onto the carpet behind her desk. He followed willingly, grinning foolishly, bewildered and hopeful and soft, and she laughed at him. Tugged him close, dropped her head onto his shoulder, and laughed at him.

“I’m kicking you out before the dress goes on,” she whispered, giddily. “Natasha, Betty and Jane are helping me get into it, and they’ll be hungover, so you need to be gone before then, capisce?”

He grinned, dropping a kiss onto the top of her head, brushing oil-stained fingers through her frazzled hair. “Gotcha. Run before the hungover hen party of doom shows up. No problem.”

She punched him, lightly, just under the reactor. Punched him, and hugged him close. “And Tony?”

“Yeah?” And he was grinning, soft and stupid, and she really did love that expression, on him.

“You’re my best friend too,” she murmured, and leaned up to brush her lips to his. “I love you.” And then, with a little grin of her own: “So be a good husband-to-be, will you, and fetch the champagne down off the desk?” She did so love it when he laughed. And when he did as he was told, too.

“Mr Pepper Potts at your service, ma’am,” he whispered, and she curled into him happily, raising her glass in silent toast.

To marriage. To friendship. And to the occasional happy, if usually accidental, union of the two.


End file.
